scholarly journals 4127 Achieving health equity in translational research: Applying critical race theory in workforce curricula to address disparity

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (s1) ◽  
pp. 77-77
Author(s):  
Kristina Gern Johnson ◽  
Karen C. Johnston ◽  
Jennifer Phillips ◽  
Maryellen Gusic

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Learners will: Identify social structures that serve as root causes of health disparitiesCritically evaluate the ways in which racism, culture, and power perpetuate disparityUse critical reflection to shape their research and advocate for institutional changeMETHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The Integrated Translational Health Research Institute of Virginia (iTHRIV) Health Equity curriculum provides a lens for participants to view health disparities, social structures that create and perpetuate disparities, and the path to a more equitable future. This longitudinal workforce curriculum incorporates the principles of critical race theory (CRT), including: race as a social construct, structural determinism, intersectionality, and the social construction of knowledge. Learners gain practical experience through facilitated group discussions and critical reflection of their own work including research question design, recruitment, dissemination, and enhancing the faculty pipeline. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: To measure the impact of the curriculum, we will evaluate learners’ participation in mentoring activities for persons from underrepresented backgrounds; participation in local and national diversity and inclusion efforts; engagement in community-based research; ability to account for implicit bias and power imbalances in their research design, including in recruitment and retention; and share research findings with community members and research participants. Evaluation strategies will include quantitative and qualitative methodologies. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: There is growing recognition of the impact of racism on the development and perpetuation of health disparities. Public health critical race praxis (an adaptation of CRT) is emerging as a theoretical framework to empower researchers to challenge the status quo in order to achieve health equity.

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (Supp 1) ◽  
pp. 279
Author(s):  
James Butler, III ◽  
Craig S. Fryer ◽  
Mary A. Garza ◽  
Sandra C. Quinn ◽  
Stephen B. Thomas

<p class="Pa6"> Racism is a fundamental cause of racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes. Researchers have a critical role to play in confronting racism by understanding it and intervening on its impact on the health and well-being of minority populations. This requires new paradigms and theoretical frameworks that are responsive to structural racism’s present-day influence on health, health disparities, and research. To address the complexity with which racism influences both health and the production of knowl­edge about minority populations, the field must accelerate the professional develop­ment of researchers who are committed to eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities and achieving health equity. In this commentary, we describe a unique and vital training experience, the Public Health Critical Race Praxis Institute at the Univer­sity of Maryland’s Center for Health Equity. Through this training institute, we have focused on the experiential knowledge of diverse researchers committed to examining racism and trained them on putting racism at the forefront of their research agendas. The Institute brought together investigators from across the United States, including junior and senior faculty as well as post­doctoral fellows. The public health critical race methodology was purposefully used to structure the Institute’s curriculum, which instructed the scholars on Critical Race Theory as a framework in research. During a 2.5-day training in February 2014, scholars participated in activities, attended presenta­tions, joined in reflections, and interacted with Institute faculty. The scholars indi­cated a strong desire to focus on race and racism and adopt a Public Health Critical Race Praxis framework by utilizing Critical Race Theory in their research. <em></em></p><p class="Pa6"><em>Ethn Dis. </em>2018;28(Suppl 1):279-284; doi:10.18865/ed.28.S1.279.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline B. Koonce

This reflective essay uncovers ways in which critical race theory and caring are key to crossing racial, cultural, and linguistic borders between professors and their students. Many scholars have noted how critical reflection relates to effective teaching, especially when taking into account student learning. Reflecting upon archival data and participant observation, the author describes, through various stories, how she uses critical race theory and caring to connect with her students in spite of their differences. The author also provides examples of how her students reciprocate her care in extravagant ways.


Author(s):  
Caron E. Gentry

This chapter argues that one of the central debates within Terrorism Studies will never be resolved: that of an agreed upon, objective definition. Several Terrorism Studies scholars believe that Terrorism Studies would be better off if it arrived at an objective definition for terrorism. Yet, this chapter demonstrates that how terrorism is largely understood is dependent upon various social structures, including gender, race, and heteronormativity. Thus, a thicker understanding of terrorism would acknowledge that it is an essentially contested concept or as an ‘utterance’. An agreed upon definition would present only a thin understanding, erasing the social structures that shape our understanding. Therefore, the chapter relies upon the concept of ‘aphasia,’ or calculated forgettings, from Critical Race theory. This concept holds that Western thought and society has purposefully forgotten how race and racialisation work to deny people of colour many things, including rationality, intelligence, and agency. Gender and heteronormativity operate in a similar way. Such operations infect all areas of life—the purpose of this chapter is to look at terrorism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 109821402110256
Author(s):  
Alice E. Ginsberg

This article presents a new tool called Critical Evaluation Capital (CEC) designed to address issues of equity and social justice in program evaluation. CEC is grounded in the tenants of critical race theory and inspired by Yosso’s work on community cultural wealth which raises critical issues of positionality and access. CEC is a system for identifying, quantifying, and disrupting the impact of different kinds of power and privilege (named here as capital) that influence the evaluation process and may distort its findings and/or alter its impact. CEC is not meant to be an entirely new evaluation framework or approach, but rather it is designed to be used as a “tool” in conjunction with other contemporary evaluation methodologies, specifically those that reposition the role of the evaluation from an “objective” outsider to an engaged stakeholder. I introduce and describe herein seven foundational categories of CEC, including framing capital, identity capital, connectivity capital, inquiry capital, risk capital, symbolic capital, and dissemination capital, along with a series of accompanying critical questions to guide reflective practice for each capital. I also describe how CEC can be applied across the evaluand—both proactively and retrospectively. I conclude with some key opportunities and challenges CEC presents for evaluators and other key stakeholder groups in the evaluand.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
GerDonna J. Ellis

In this thesis I explore the different stories students of color draw from and internalize to understand their identities in relation to oppression and resilience. Through reviewing critical race theory (CRT) and critical whiteness literature, I identify what I call the "oppression narrative", in which students of color are often discussed as being oppressed and disadvantaged. Stories are powerful, and in many ways the stories we hear and believe about ourselves make us who we are. Eight narrative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with students who attended a predominately white institution (PWI) and identified as black or Latinx. Seven themes emerged as influential in how these students chose to identify themselves, and how their stories reflected oppression and/or processes of resiliency in making sense of and navigating their world: external/internal identity tension, not leading with challenges, claiming privilege or support, denying a deficit, identity as an anchor, using community, and reframing circumstance and highlighting victories. These eight students' stories rejected the oppression narrative and their narratives reveal the many ways in which they engage in processes of resiliency through difficult circumstance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 486-486
Author(s):  
Joseph Gaugler ◽  
Laura Gitlin ◽  
Lauren Parker

Abstract Black/African American participation in non-pharmacological randomized trials and community-based research on Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias (ADRD) remains low. This presentation introduces Critical Race Theory (CRT), its tenets and how it can be used in tandem with national strategies to encourage participation of Black/African Americans in ADRD research. CRT is a transdisciplinary methodology that draws on anti-racist tenets to study and transform the relationships among race, racism, and power. We describe how CRT constructs (e.g., race consciousness, counter-storytelling) can be used to inform recruitment strategies to enroll Black/African American ADRD caregivers into community-based research by drawing upon two ongoing studies: a randomized trial providing caregiver support through Adult Day Services (ADS) and the evaluation of impact of ADS on stress levels of Black/African American using biomarker measures. In the spirit of CRT this presentation is a call for action and transformation of dementia care research to actively include Black/African Americans.


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